Big thanks to my wife Tomoko for all of her support and help. She woke up at 4am with me on Race day to help Mike and I out. Additionally she cooked dinner for Mike and I pretty much everyday, save for the few times we went out for dinner, which was maybe twice. Definitely couldn't have done it with out her, she even measured out our pasta to X number of grams so that she could know our sodium, fat and calorie intake. Man am I lucky to have married her!

I had a great event and the training definitely paid off. My target time was 1:30:00 but I was able to pull out 1:19:22 so I am really pleased with my result. We spent a lot of time training the swim which I think paid off well because I was terrible at properly swimming. For the event I picked up some elastic laces for both my shoes and it really helped my transition times a bunch and when compared to the other people I was able to transition quickly.

During the swim I kept with the front crawl for basically 99% of the race, a few times when swimming into another person I had to switch to breast stroke for a few strokes to help create space and then switched back to front crawl. I am pleased with my time and definitely the swim practice paid off, when I first got in the pool 2 months ago it was absurd to think about swimming 800 meters.

I swam hard the entire course, right into the dirt so that I could transition quickly. Watching the pros do this on Saturday was a big help, saw a bit of what not to do, and a bit of what to do - Swim into the dirt, it's fast! 750M was 14:27 the 30th fastest.

I swam hard the entire course, right into the dirt so that I could transition quickly. Watching the pros do this on Saturday was a big help, saw a bit of what not to do, and a bit of what to do - Swim into the dirt, it's fast! 750M was 14:27 the 30th fastest.

Saturday Mike and I went and watched the pros race and we definitely picked up some good ideas, one of which can be seen in the photo here. I literally swam until my face was in the dirt and then stood up in ankle deep water. This turns out to be very fast and certainly the way to do it when comparing to the other people we saw. Unfortunately it makes it really difficult for the camera woman, however Tomoko was awesome with the camera and got this kickass shot, literally half a second before this image I was 80% under-water, with only my cap and shorts visible.

The transition zone was really big on this race, it was atleast 200 to 300 meters to my bike from the water so I had a good little run to get to my machine. I've got my transition recorded on a video camera but have to get some cords to get it off the camera, I'll upload it to my youtube site asap. Overall the transition went well, most people stopped and stepped over the seat and clipped in before riding. In my case I mounted the bike while running and didn't waste any time stopping so that was a bonus for me. I practiced that transition a few times in the parking lot at my apartment building the day before, it worked well.

On the bike I got passed by one guy early on, literally within the first 500 meters, I basically followed him the rest of the course. On the two hills in the course I passed him, however on the flats he got passed me. One advantage he had was a much more expensive bike and aero bars so that will help if I buy those, but don't tell my wife that. I was more or less always a few bike lengths behind the guy but that is required because you cannot draft in triathlon. I was passed by only one other person and he flew by me at like 45 mph with aerobars, aero-wheels, aero-helmet, and a triathlon bike, I figured I wouldn't be seeing him anymore and I'm pretty sure it is the guy who got first place. I may have been able to push a bit harder on the bike but my speedometer was not reading because it got twisted a bit but luckily cadence was still reporting fine. I'm not sure if the speedometer would help or not but I figured it wasn't worth stopping for so I just ignored it and kept going. The only other mishap on the bike was that I put a disgusting drink in my water bottle which I didn't realize was terrible because I had never drunk it before, after I drank a little while riding I think I almost threw up, I'll never make that mistake again. That shit was terrible!

If you look at my left foot you might notice it is my white sock standing on top of my green shoe, now that's how to make a quick transition!

Transition two went really quick, I took my shoes off while riding, might be able to see in the picture. I jumped off the bike and ran into my station, dropped the bike off and slipped my running shoes on almost instantly, elastic laces rule!

The start of the run was pretty tough, it takes a little bit to get used to running after riding a bike, once I got passed the first kilometer things were alright. I started to notice my achilles tendent aching and I tried to ignore it at first. After a minute or two of running I thought I better stop and have a look and so I did. Unfortunately I had my sensor inside my sock and it was rubbing badly, naturally I took it out of my sock and was back running. It was a little annoying but I imagine it only cost me 4-6 seconds at most.

After the halfway mark I had a bit of a cramp on my left side but I just kept running. The entire time I was a few meters back from the same guy I was chasing on the bike. At the 4k mark we made a left turn back on Church road and I had previewed the course two days before and knew this last road was the place to make my move. I picked up the pace a bit but still wasn't catching the man in front of me, there were two more turns to make which were within the last 300 meters. Once I made the first turn I really picked up the pace to an almost sprint and caught him. I maintained the same pace until the last turn with 150 meters remaining in the race and I went all out. Once that happened no one was going to catch me and I finished at 1:19:22.

Start of the run, legs feeling a bit wobbly but such is triathlon.

The next triathlon is October 10th in Pinehurst North Carolina. That triathlon is an International meaning the distances will be twice they were of the Lake Norman YMCA event.
Swim: 1.5 km, Bike: 40 km, Run: 10 km.

May 25th, 10:Travian Vis
Vis is better than
the game.
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December 15th, 09:Mario AI
One agile plumberGGJ - DYMYW
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November 30th, 09:Thanksgiving09
and this years
winner of
SIAJAWWTA Pie Competition